Darker than Light
by Knight of The Wind
Summary: The one to take away the darkness is the one who must bear it. After watching most of most of his loved ones die -and killing the last one himself- Spiderman became less than a shallow reflection of who he used to be. The Symbiote's barely keeping him alive, and slowly leeching what's left. Peter needs to be saved from the darkness he's become. But he has no one left - so who will?


'_This city never sleeps.._'

Tucking into a roll and jumping off the roof a building, Spiderman flicked his wrist in the oh-so-familiar movement of web-slinging. He thrust his legs out, adding to both his speed and momentum as he felt himself rise up, waiting for the peak of the swing before letting go of the dark web. His body was thrown upwards, followed by a graceful backflip. Once facing forward again, Spiderman kicked his legs out to either side of him and shot another string of webbing in between them, pulling roughly and launching himself forward, running on the side of the Daily Bugle's central building for good measure. He pushed off the edge and rocketed up, towards the impossibly distant silver moon.

The pearly Luna was such an extreme contrast to the young mutant, outfitted with an entirely black costume, it sent a pang through him. But the silver spider on his chest served as a reminder of there still being hope in the world, good things and good people.

Peter's ranting had taken him longer than he'd thought. He suddenly found himself perched at the top of the Empire State building, city still wide-awake with its twinkling lights and, from up where he was, faint noises. He sighed deeply, as the thoughts he pushed away at day once again entered his mind.

Dead.

All of them.

Dead.

Mary Jane, Harry, Gwen, Aunt May.

All of them dead. Killed.

And the people who did it... They were all dead as well.

Spiderman had just rejected the Symbiote...

... It's about time I got rid of you" Peter said, landing on the church tower. He had to admit, having the sticky alien had saved him countless times in their short time together, but it had come at a cost. And Peter was not willing to go that far. Ever.

Another thing he had to admit, was his hesitance to take the suit off. So much power... Of course it was tempting. Maybe, he could work out a way to-

"Snap out of it, Parker!" he hissed at himself, and before he could register anything he else, he grabbed the black mask and tore at it.

Truth be told, Peter was surprised. It came off quite easily. Startled, he looked at the mask. It was in his hands, the whole piece, as if he'd just removed it for a breather. "Huh.." Peter pondered.

And _then _it sprouted tentacles and stuck to his face. Even as Spiderman cried out in surprise, he noticed the rest of the Symbiote suit tighten around him, the whole substance joining together, sewing itself taught against its host. No, after all that struggle alone, and after finally finding the troubled teenager who needed it... No, it would not let go.

'_We can be greatly powerful!_'it screeched in Peter's mind. It shaped itself into the image of Spiderman, facing a determined-looking Peter.

"I'm aware of that. But I'm not interested," he grinned, donning his traditional Spiderman costume. The Symbiote growled and threw itself at the boy, attacking all the well-known weak spots, lunging for the openings in Spiderman's stance it knew would be there. Peter was having a hard time keeping up, and stumbled back. His eyes were wide in fear as the Symbiote immediately jumped on him, hands around his throat.

"_You don't know what you're doing... But we do_" and black tentacles covered his vision.

Outside, back to the church tower, Spiderman was thrashing about, his body convulsing as the internal struggle for external control raged on. Hands clawing at the sides of his head, he screamed a guttural scream as he bashed his head against the church's bell.

Another, equally- if not more- guttural scream left him as the sound of said bell reverberated against the inside of the bell, against his body, throughout the city, and most importantly - in his ears. The scream became more and more inhumane as the Symbiote rose from Peter's body in agony, voicing its pain by its lonesome. Almost as quickly as it happened, the alien began coming back, cursing itself for that damn weakness and for having shown it.

But Peter had already caught on, and proceeded to ram himself into the bell repeatedly, insanely. It hurt, yes -like hell-, but he was tearing off the Symbiote with relative ease. As well as a shit-ton of pain, but what're you gonna do. Can't win 'em all.

With a last tug, Peter freed himself from the hate-consuming alien, and in his weariness, paid no heed to what became of it, rather focusing on getting his naked self home...

... _Oh, Peter_' he smiled sadly, as he thought back to the past, looking down at his black-gloved hand and slowly making a fist, ' _What a terrible mistake you made, friend_"

He'd gone home and all but passed out on his bed, regaining consciousness almost twelve hours later. That was when he realized that he'd left the Symbiote to its own affairs and, after a quick washing of the ol' red and blue, returned to the tower. As expected, it wasn't there. Then Venom showed up.

But he wasn't alone. And it wasn't an ally he had…

... Hostage, Parker! Think you can save her?" Venom taunted as he held Mary Jane by her throat, body over the street. They were on a tall building that would be a pain to crawl up, so Peter quickly decided he'd have to zip there.

"Look, Venom" Spiderman addressed the creature by the alias it had given itself, trying to buy himself time. The were another two hostages wearing black hoods over their faces by the Symbiote's feet, and he had to save them too, "I just wan-"

Venom let Mary Jane go. No, he didn't just let her go, he threw her down hard.

For a second, Peter felt all the air in his lungs leave him and he just watched in disbelief. But it passed quickly.

"Mary Jane!" Spiderman roared, immediately launching himself towards the screaming girl with terrified eyes. There were three things Peter could hear: MJ's desperate cries, his own heart... And Venom's vicious laughter. A cruel, bestial sound from above him. Once within range, Spiderman webbed Mary Jane and pulled her to him as he continued nearing. Their bodies collided at the midway point and they began tumbling down.

"You're ok! You're safe, it's fine!" Spiderman shouted over the wind around them. He had her, he had her!

The girl in his arms gaped at him for a moment, then-

"Spiderman! Oh my God, thank you so much I thought I was going to di-"

She stopped suddenly. Her eyes were wide, mouth hung open and body limp. Peter felt something warm on his mask, but ignored it in favor of understanding what had happened. Her body starting resisting the fall, and when he let go, it hung in the air as he continued to descend. That's when he saw it.

A thick, dark tentacle covered in crimson sprouting out of Mary Jane's abdomen.

The warmth on his face was blood.

Blood.

Mary Jane's blood.

Mary Jane was dead.

Killed.

Spiderman fell further into the city, watching as Mary Jane's form became smaller and smaller. Time seemed to slow. As if it wanted him to soak this moment in. It was more like a flame that burnt it into his mind. His memory. Forever.

He may have screamed, then.

Things started moving again. And actually, they were starting to speed up. Spiderman swung back up, forcing his eyes away from the dead girl and focusing them on the cackling monster, who held the other hostages' heads. Peter felt the hatred building up within him, like acid tearing him apart. Tears welled up, but none fell. None would fall, it seemed.

Venom removed the bags. The hostages were revealed.

The tears fell, then.

"You..." Peter was trembling with rage, " You _fucking_ _monster_!" he bellowed savagely. Before he knew what was happening, he had thrown himself to the Symbiote, dead set on keeping him away from Gwen and Aunt May. He had to save them.

They were screaming something at him. Their eyes were scared beyond description. Their screams held words to them, they were trying frantically to tell him something. But he was so far away, and Venom was still laughing about something, and that damn beeping sound was so loud.

Beeping?

It hit him. A second too late.

"NO!"

However, he knew it was futile. He saw their faces one last time, their battered hair and untidy clothes, and the wired metal strapped to them.

And one last blink from a red light.

The sound of the explosion was deafening. It sent a high-pitched squeal through his ears, shook his bones. But most of all, the blast was a depiction. A depiction of something happening to Spiderman, to Peter Parker.

Something in him snapped. Broke. Shattered. Part of it was his heart. No,all of it was.

Spiderman grabbed Venom by the head and tossed him onto a roof. Venom screamed and lashed out with a tentacle, but right as it was about to make contact with Peter, it squirmed and retreated, for whatever reason that Peter couldn't be bothered to think of. Venom hit the concrete roof roughly, but stood quickly enough to dodge a bone-shattering punch. The creature then grabbed his arm and tossed him aside, but strangely, there wasn't any strength behind it. Spiderman couldn't have cared less as to why that was, he simply jumped back into the action with a barrage of punches and a flurry of kicks that all hit their target with no resistance. He walked over to the downed Symbiote and lifted him. Where his hands met the alien, the suit retreated. Whatever.

"This is it for you, Venom" Spiderman spat, "Congratulations on not lasting a single day as my enemy"

Then he bashed Eddie Brock's head on the roof with all the strength he could muster and flung him down into the street. Venom shrieked and shot out webs to stop his fall, but they all broke like dead leaves when Spiderman jumped on him and pushed him to go down faster. Right before Venom hit the street, Peter jumped again, landing safely next to the small crater Venom's fall had formed. The monster screeched obscenities and threats, promises to destroy Spiderman.

But Peter didn't listen. He just continued his onslaught of the man's head, hearing cracks, feeling blood, seeing the suit leave. Leave Brock and come to him.

Yes. Of course it was. Peter had rejected it the day before, but the hate that consumed him now was ever greater than what he had previously felt. It made his past anger seem like a childish tantrum. This was hatred at its purest, at its core. Rage and loathing at unimaginable scales. The Symbiote needed that, all of it. It shuddered in pleasure when it touched him, forgetting all plans to slowly attach itself and just about jumping him, reveling in the scorn, loving it.

And Peter let it sit there, on him. He felt his power rising, overflowing, and used it to completely finish off Brock. He didn't stay to watch. He left the unrecognizable bloody mess in the street and left…

... Spiderman jumped off the Empire state building. That had been five years ago. He was twenty-two. At first, it hadn't registered. The events. It took until after the funerals. His raging emotions had fed the suit extreme prowess. He realized now that he would probably die without it. The human body can only handle so much without breaking. His hate, on its own, could already shatter, never mind the amplification by the Symbiote. And were he to survive another extraction, the Symbiote would take all of his hate with it. Not only would it

completely ruin a life, it would be near unstoppable. It was his duty to keep that from happening.

So Peter kept the suit. Any ideas of ditching it were squandered after he was forced to kill the Hobgoblin. Harry Osborn. He had been the last thing Peter had, and he destroyed his existence with his own hands.

No, there was no going back after Harry.

Spiderman became a feared figure. He was no longer your "Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman". He was like a ghost. Occasionally, he would still try to make a joke or a bad pun, but somehow they all came off sounding threatening. So, mostly he remained silent. In reality, Peter Parker hardly existed. He spent most of his time in his suit.

Spiderman had to protect the city. But Peter had no one to live for. He would sometimes help at Doctor Connors' lab, who knew his secret due to detecting the Symbiote on him. Peter hadn't much cared, really. Curt was a good man. The Doctor himself had been uneasy at first, but he'd gotten used to the new, reserved Peter Parker eventually. He was always a great help, anyway.

J. J Jameson didn't see much of the now-young-man. But his last few drop-by's had left the image of a pale, sleep deprived Parker, and that had even the old grouch worried. But Peter didn't utter more than a few words, and hardly gave enough time to ask if he was alright. Of course, Jameson was aware of what had happened to him a few years back. In fact, he'd gone to the funeral of the three dead women and had embraced the sixteen year old as he wept his heart out. What J.J didn't know was that that had been the last time Peter cried.

Spiderman was mid-swing when he suddenly collapsed on top of an old brick building that gave way under the pressure of his incoming body. He rolled on the dirty floor of a third story, and skidded to a painful stop. Peter didn't bother trying to stand up. He wasn't going anywhere and he knew it. He didn't sleep. It hardly came anyway, and when it did, he was plagued with visions of the past, if he was lucky. On worse nights, the events were transformed and made into something thousands of times more grueling. So Spiderman worked himself dead and rested when his body could take no more and lost consciousness. Which, he knew, was happening to him now. He recognized the buzz in his head, the spasms of his muscles.

No. Spiderman was not who he used to be. Neither was Peter Parker. Together, they fought for what they believed in, an idea as pure as snow and as bright as that moon shining down upon them. Upon him.

They fought for something whiter than white, to keep the others away from what he'd become.

Darker than Black.

Because, after all, he had the power to.

He was responsible for it.

**Hey, guys. I do plan to write more chapters for this story, however it will be some time before any are up. I was desperate to upload this, so I did, but now I will take the time to pre-write a lot of chapters so I can update somewhat regularly. Please bear with me. Hope you enjoyed, don't forget to R & R!**


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